Looking at the demon core.
Even with Shen Yi’s practiced habit of concealing his reactions, an eyebrow rose on its own.
Young flood dragons had cores too, technically — they looked more like beast cores, closer to a raw lump of flesh and blood.
But this one was smooth, clearly past anything that could be called an organ. It matched what had been extracted from Zhang Hengzhou: the kind that only existed at the Condensate Realm.
She called this a small gift?
Having cultivated the Heavenly Demon Yama Essence-Devouring External Pill Art, Shen Yi had picked up at least a shallow understanding of the Condensate Realm, even if the method was only the fox clan’s rough imitation of true core condensation.
The forging process had divided into three stages.
First: the core taking rough shape. Second: the core fully formed. Third: thick jade liquid overflowing and coating it, sealing the gaps, rounding it into a complete and full state.
The core in front of him was noticeably smaller than the one taken from Zhang Hengzhou. The qi inside was roughly sixty percent of that one’s. Almost certainly an incomplete core — still only at the first stage.
So the Heavenly Demon external pill was modeled on the fully complete state.
Three thousand years of the flood dragon lord’s cultivation only half-fills it. If it were filled entirely — by a conventional practitioner’s standards, that would be equivalent to Condensate Realm Perfection, at the threshold of the core-nurturing stage, where external things could be fed in to deepen it.
The Solar-Fusion Furnace just isn’t strong enough to contain more powerful demonic force yet.
His understanding of his own current level had become more precise. Shen Yi didn’t use the new core — he set it aside for future replenishment of the external pill.
He took out the technique records one by one and leafed through them.
Several new entries appeared in the panel.
【Azure Wood Turtle-Breath Method — Untrained】
【玲珑 Nine-Aperture Transformation Art — Untrained】
【Mountain-Seeking Qi-Gazing Method — Untrained】
【Demon-Seeking Qi-Drawing Art — Untrained】
Four complete manuals. Not one of them had a cultivation-realm prefix.
Shen Yi didn’t look down on them for that.
Sometimes techniques that didn’t increase raw power were more practical than any upper-grade combat method.
He glanced at his remaining demon lifespan — just over a thousand years — and felt the beginnings of a headache.
He settled in and read more carefully, testing things as he went.
The differences became clear quickly. The Qi-Drawing Art and the Qi-Gazing Method were both simple techniques with limited scope. The first had a single function: after locating a demon, extract a thread of its qi and store it in the silver bell. Within a certain range, any other bell-holder could then sense the demon’s presence through that stored trace.
The effect was similar to what happened after he consumed the flood dragon’s core — being able to detect Zhang Hengzhou across Qingfeng Mountain from a distance. Of course, the reverse had applied as well.
The Qi-Gazing Method was different — it channeled qi into a visual enhancement, making things ordinarily invisible perceptible. Demon energy, for instance.
Where the Qi-Drawing Art was suited to tracking a specific demon, the Qi-Gazing Method was more for scanning broad areas — surveying a mountain or open water, detecting whether demonic activity was present at scale.
Both techniques were simple enough that casual testing produced results immediately. With the number of Perfection-level martial arts he’d accumulated, small methods like these weren’t difficult.
The remaining two were different.
Both the Turtle-Breath Method and the Transformation Art required genuine proficiency to use effectively. Three to five years of basic practice would get them to a functional level — with mediocre results. At Perfection, they could conceal a practitioner even against opponents at a higher cultivation level, fooling both their senses and their detection.
For techniques that protected his life, Shen Yi had never been stingy.
He opened the panel and began feeding lifespan in without deliberating.
He had developed real command of qi circulation by now — the broad, forceful style of the Four Harmonies True Astral Force, the precise and fine-grained touch of the Meridian-Severing Dragon Capture — he was well past the fumbling beginner’s stage.
Twenty-seven years of demon lifespan.
Shen Yi sat on the bed, still as a section of dead wood, like a clay statue — the qi throughout his body drawn inward until nothing reached the surface.
【Azure Wood Turtle-Breath Method — Perfection】
【玲珑 Nine-Aperture Transformation Art — Perfection】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 1,098 years】
A hand passed across the face.
The sharp, clean features shifted in an instant — a wizened elder, then a weathered middle-aged man, then a child’s unformed softness.
It wasn’t only the face. The breathing patterns, the subtle details of bearing and expression — all of it moved with the change, convincingly, completely.
“Interesting.”
He set aside the distraction of exploration, withdrew the transformation, and tried the Qi-Gazing Method.
His clear eyes filled with golden light.
The world shifted to a grey, indistinct fog. When he looked outward, pale mist moved everywhere — occasional threads shot through with gold drifted past, probably passing Deputy Commanders.
“Hmm.”
Several of those gold-tinged threads were drifting toward the side courtyard.
He withdrew the light from his eyes. Moments later, several Deputy Commanders in black cloaks walked in carrying a large jade tray.
“Commander Shen.”
They inclined their heads, composed and neither fawning nor stiff. “These are the techniques you selected, along with a hundred years’ supply of body-refinement medicine. We thought you might be leaving soon, so we came quickly.”
Though he was a personal attendant, they weren’t under General Chen’s command and had nothing to ask of him — so excessive deference wasn’t warranted.
“…”
Shen Yi processed that for a moment.
A hundred years didn’t refer to the medicine’s age. It referred to how long it would take to use.
A full hundred small jade bottles, packed close together across the entire surface of the tray.
“Thank you.”
“Not at all, sir.”
The Deputy Commanders quickly set down the tray and clasped their hands. He was the Division’s most talked-about figure at the moment.
“We won’t keep you, sir.”
They glanced briefly at the books spread across the bed — and looked away immediately before leaving.
Though privately, a few of them felt something.
There had been a small thread of resentment earlier, watching their own subordinates drift mentally toward the idea of following Shen Yi to Linjiang Prefecture for a comfortable posting.
Now, seeing this — the personal attendant had just come back from Qingfeng Mountain, worn down, finally given two months of rest leave, and instead of going to drink and enjoy some music, was sitting in a room working on techniques.
It was — difficult to say anything much about that.
“…”
Once alone, Shen Yi stood, closed the door, and picked up the two new technique volumes.
Both Jade Liquid Realm. The Bodhi Vajra Sacred Body at upper-grade. The White Stallion Divine Stride at mid-grade.
Either one, out in the world, was foundational enough to establish a sect.
Is this the thing Zhang Tuhu has been thinking about all this time?
He opened the Bodhi Vajra Sacred Body and realized, with a start, that he’d been back for the better part of a day and still hadn’t seen the man. Apparently the Division’s triumphant return procession didn’t compare to more time with a particular someone.
At the time, that generous brute had traded the Golden Sun Eight Treasures Mysterious Body for a blood-corruption bladework technique he was himself entirely unable to cultivate. And beyond that, he’d stepped in without hesitation to hold back the Gaunt Monk — helping take down that ape demon with its frightening bladework and in the process securing a fine saber.
You traded it away and never stopped to ask whether I could even practice it.
He thought of Zhang Tuhu slapping his stomach and laughing, and shook his head. Giving this technique to him directly would invite complications, and the method itself had a serious flaw. He’d derive a new body-refinement art from it first, then teach that version to Zhang Tuhu.
Demonic methods weren’t an option regardless — but finding a flawless body-refinement technique somewhere outside shouldn’t be too hard once he was moving around more freely.
(End of Chapter)